On July 13, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter announced that next year, after a 6-month study, transgender Americans should be allowed to serve openly in the armed forces along with their gay and lesbian compatriots. It is a long overdue action to remove a barrier to open service for a small but significant minority.

If you love cities, if you see them as the places where the promise of America, the ideal of citizenship highlighted by the president, can be fulfilled... you have one more reason to keep pushing for real change over the next four years.